


I Never Told You What I Did For A Living

by runaway_killjoy



Category: Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, PVRIS (Band), Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - Journalism, Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Politics, Dark, F/F, Italian Mafia, M/M, Plotty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:13:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5800339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runaway_killjoy/pseuds/runaway_killjoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mafia AU<br/>Patrick can't believe his luck when he manages to expose a mafia-related murder in New Jersey, sparking a new media obsession with these hidden mobs.<br/>Gerard can't believe his bad luck when he is placed like a pawn in the way of Maria Constantini, daughter of the most powerful Don in New York, Antonio Constantini. Antonio's nephew is forced to co-operate with his cousin's new bo as the Families struggle to stay undercover from the pressure of the media.<br/>The upcoming elections for seat as senator is forcing candidate Brendon Urie to employ the help of former detective Lynn Gunn to rid the city of crime before the polls come in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nothing is as important as family. In a world where pockets win over friendships, blood ties people together.

    Emilio Basso was the first of his family to move to New York, in 1899. He was one of the thousands of Italian immigrants to move over around the turn of the century. He was an accomplished lawyer and he set up a law firm with several other highly educated Italian immigrants. In 1902 he married the youngest daughter of one of his colleagues, Carola Abandanto.

    Carola and Emilio moved to New Jersey in the fall of 1902 where Emilio set up his own law firm. They bought a large house on the edge of town where they raised their six children. Carola stayed at home minding the children and teaching a few of their neighbours English.

    Emilio and Carola lost their three youngest sons in the First World War as they fought for America, against their parents’ wishes. The eldest child, Nazario was to follow in the footsteps of his father and run the law firm. In 1926 the business burned to the ground with Nazario inside in an arson case that was never resolved.

    Emilio was heartbroken. He never reopened the business but took to full time raising his two remaining children, and grandchild, Emilio Jr. Nazario’s wife had run off with an ex priest from the local church and they moved back to Italy, without her son.

    Emilio’s daughters married two wealthy Italian bankers who had profited on the war and they bought large houses on the same street as Emilio and Carola. When Emilio died, ten years later, one of the daughters, Donna, moved in with her mother to help take care of her, the house, and Emilio. Donna and her husband never had children of their own but treated Emilio like their son, sending him to law school in 1939, just before the war.

     After the war Emilio returned to the family home and built up the family business again, helping those in the local area who were really struggling under the weight of the war. He married the young war widow Elena in the spring of 1947. Elena was young and left alone after her first husband Francesco Constantini died in the invasion of Sicily. He also left her in a lot of debt to the more powerful men in the state. Emilio helped Elena out of the difficulty and gained a name for himself among the other Families. They had their first and only child in 1950.

    Elena died in child birth with their daughter Donna Elena Basso.  Emilio took to home life raising Donna and helping his friends out from his Family office. In 1974 Donna married her childhood sweetheart in secret, Alberto Way, the great great great grandnephew of Carola Abandanto. Emilio tried to calm the scandal caused by their marriage by taking Alberto under his wing, teaching him how things in the Family’s inner circle works. Donna gave birth to their first son on April 9th 1977 during a gun battle on the street below. Gerard Way was born in to the violence of the Family from day one.


	2. Stay Out Of The Light

February 1997, New Jersey

 

“Are you seeing this?” Alberto fumed, slamming the newspaper on the table. I was seeing it, he didn’t need to be so aggressive. “We’re in trouble now. People will see us now.”

     “There’s thousands of Italians in the state, why would they think it’s us?” My cousin Johnny Basso says. His accent is thick with far more New Jersey in it than Italian. The same with me, but my father still sounds straight out of Sicily.

     “Have we no one in the media on our pay roll anymore?” my father growls, flopping into his desk chair. “Where are all our people gone?”

     “New York, with Constantini,” Johnny says quietly.

     My father makes a loud noise, pushing his rolling chair back hard into the wall. The photo frames shake where they hang. “Where is my son,” he sighs after a moment.

     “I’m… right here?”

     “Not you, where’s Michael?”

     “At the café,” of course he didn’t mean me. “As usual.”

     “Go get him Gerard we need to have a Family chat. Johnny, get me our cop in here. We need to sort this out immediately.”

 

It’s snowing heavily outside. Papa wouldn’t let me take the car because it’s not normal for a twenty year old boy to have a driver, and right now we need to look normal. I can feel the snow seep through my coat and then through the fabric of my jumper and shirt, making it chafe my skin. I almost fall over a campaign poster hidden in the snow. I grab a pole next to me for balance. The pole has another poster on it. Fucking by-elections.

     I turn the corner around the church, St. Maria’s. Inside women are lighting candles for my father, and some secretly for Tony Gravano, though if anyone knew that, they would find themselves in some trouble. It’s _our_ church so there should be no prayers for _his_ soul, apparently.

     I find Mikey serving coffee in his café. I never understood this obsession of his with the place. It’s probably a silent protest against the Family but Papa will never see that his son has no interest in it. He could just leave it to me, I wouldn’t mind. I am ready now even, if anything drastic were to happen.

   “My shift isn’t over yet Gee,” Mikey says as soon as I walk in.

   “Mikey you can take a break anytime you want. Papa wants you home now.”

    “Papa can wait.” He wipes the steam wand and nozzle to signify the end of that conversation. There’s only about three people in the café, not including myself. I mumble my order and take a seat in the corner away from the window.

     Someone had left a copy of the morning’s paper on the table. I turn it over and sure enough “The Godfather Four? When did mafia violence return to our city?” is scrawled across the front. Mikey places my cup down in front of me, sloshing a bit over the edge, “I know, I saw it, okay?” he hisses and storms off.

    I read over the article again. “Murder!... Family driven feuds… Italian organised crime… how long have they been under our noses?...” etc, etc.

    “God,” I mumble picking up my cup.

    “Terrible isn’t it?” The voice makes me jump and spill some coffee on the paper. Another person has entered the café.

     “Yes,” I say. The person is a young man. Quite stout, very small actually, with thick rimmed glasses and a fedora. Unusual enough looking by the people I know, but he looks familiar.

     He begins to look uncomfortable, like he just realised he’s talking to a stranger about the mafia. “I… uh… I heard he was a senior member of one of the main Families.” _Wrong._ “So his death must be a pretty big deal.”

     Tony Gravano was the consigliere to his brother Franco. The Gravanos are certainly not a main family. In fact they only got our attention when an associate of theirs pulled a knife on my cousin Cecilia. Johnny and I went to pay them a visit and Tony pulled a gun out, the only problem was that this was in a car park and the whole thing was apparently overheard by some journalist.

     “Listen Tony, put the gun down,” I’d said as smoothly as I could.

     “Shut up boy!” Tony shouted in slurred Italian. He was so frantic at the time, I wonder if he and the associate had done something more to our family than we knew. He pulled a knife on Cecilia because she wasn’t interested, as far as I know.

     “Don’t be disrespectful,” Johnny said, drawing his own gun. I felt my gun in my pocket. “He’s Alberto’s son.”

     “I know who he is,” Gravano said, he was shaking. He aimed his gun at me. “Leave me alone.”

     “Tony,” I said, and then he shot at me. He was a truly awful shot, missed me by a good foot, but Johnny was having none. Johnny shot him in the head the instant his gun went off. Our car was waiting down the road so Johnny put his gun away and we strolled off. We didn’t want to kill him. He was probably hiding something, but he tried to kill me and what else were we supposed to do.

     Papa understood that, that’s why he hasn’t kicked me out or something yet.

    “I bet the Families are shitting themselves now,” I smile innocently, feigning the American bloodlust for seeing criminals in trouble. “They’ve been exposed now. How many do you think there are?”  
     The young man looks excited. “Can I sit here?” he asks gesturing in front of me. I nod. “Well, I believe there’s networks upon networks out there.” True. “To be honest with you…?”

     “Tyler.” Nice, safe, not Italian name.

     “To be honest with you Tyler I don’t think the mafia ever shrank, since Al Capone,” he pronounces his name wrong. How can you pronounce that wrong? “In fact they must have grown substantially.”

    I nod along. I don’t really want to talk to this guy who probably thinks himself very well researched on _my_ Family. Mikey is eyeing me from the counter. He’s washing a cup.

     “I think you’re definitely right. Sorry I never caught your name?”

     “Patrick,” he smiles.

     “Well I think you’re definitely right Patrick. It’s mad to think, isn’t it, all this violence that we never hear about.”

     His eyes shine, “I know!”

     “Well,” I say, watching Mikey take off his apron. “It was a pleasure talking to you but my brother just finished his shift and we have to go meet our parents, so I’ll see you around.” I stand up. This Patrick guy genuinely seems sad to see me get up to go.

     “Ah, well, it was nice to meet you!”

     “Nice to meet you too.”

     Mikey and I cross paths steps from the door. The café was empty but for Mikey’s fellow barista and Patrick, the Mob Expert. Only when we’re safely around St Maria’s does Mikey turn on me.

     “What the fuck were you doing talking to that guy?” he hisses.

     “We were sharing mutual interest in mob affairs.”

     “Gee! He’s the one that fucking wrote the fucking article you fucking idiot.”

     Oh. _Oh._ “Oh.”

     “Oh? Is that all you’re going to replay with. Fuck sake, Gee!”  
     We cross the road and dip through an alley. The snow has stopped briefly and we trudge through the grey sludge that fell earlier. I think my insides are frozen. I can’t help but wonder how long it took for Gravano’s blood to freeze after it melted a little patch of snow beside him. Morbid, morbid thoughts. 

     “What if he recognised your voice?”

     “We spoke Italian.”

     “All the time?” I shrug. “You’re not being safe, Gerard.”

     “Of course I am, I’m alive. I’m known to that guy as Tyler. It’s all okay.” He just shakes his head.

 

I walk straight to the radiator when we walk into the house. Mikey’s unravelling his scarf as Johnny walks over to us. “Your father is in a meeting right now,” he sighs. He’s been looking tired recently. I wonder how old he is.

     “I came all the way home for a Family meeting,” Mikey groans, as if the walk was a particularly difficult thing.

     “It’s with a very important man,” Johnny explains as we walk in to the living room.

     “More important than his sons?”

     “Yes,” Johnny says, raising his eyebrow to show that it may have been a joke. Maybe.

     Grandpa is sitting in his old armchair by the fire place. He has been slowly growing more and more senile over the past four years, leaving my father the title of Don. This has caused enough upset as it is, considering he is not my grandfather’s son. “Ciao Nonno Emilio,” I say and sit down in front of him. He, in his withering mind, has forgotten English.

    Mikey wanders into the kitchen behind me. My grandfather doesn’t look at me, he’s too busy watching the flames, so I leave him be.

    I turn on the television and flick around for a bit but there’s nothing good on. Every news station’s full of Gravano. Of all the things and people to let the truth slip through the cracks, it’s the death of Tony Gravano.

   I flip to MTV. Some pop band I don’t recognise are on so I turn it down and leave it. “Turn that rubbish off!” Mikey yells from the kitchen and I can then here the feint sounds of some of the women scolding him.

    My father’s “important” guest leaves his office as I am on my way out of the bathroom, an hour after we’ve returned. It’s two guests, actually, so I assume the better dressed one is the important one. The other one seems to be wearing a woman’s blouse though he is certainly a man. I turn to the better dressed one. “Hey I recognise you,” I say, scratching my elbow, “I nearly fell over your face this afternoon!”  
     “Excuse me?” he says. That’s not a New Jersey accent.

     “One of your posters, obviously not your actual face, I assume you would have noticed if I fell over that.” The guy looks confused but amused while the other looks bored.

     “Gerard!” My father yells from his office. I nod to the two men and walk in. I can hear them whispering amongst themselves as I leave.

    Inside my father is in his big desk chair, turned away, like a Bond villain. My cousin Marc is leaning against a shelf, looking as unamused as ever. “That man you were casually chatting to is running for senator,” he hisses. I guess we do not like him. “Mr Urie was also the only politician we had with us and he just formally ended communication with us, to avoid scandal.”

    “I see.”

    “Get your brother.”  
    I get Mikey and we sit down on the green leather couch in front of our father. Johnny enters the room shortly after. “Before Mr Urie arrived I got a call from Constantini in New York.” I raise my eyebrows. “He is nervous, as much as he would rather not show it. We all are. He would like to hold a meeting of the families during his nieces wedding in two days. But not all the families, just the ones he believes he could do business with.”

    “And that includes us?”

    “Obviously, Gerard,” Marc growls.

    “Yes it includes us,” My father sighs. “I think we should co-operate with him. He wants us because we’re the biggest here in New Jersey, but we need the Constantinis because they own New York.”

    “Is he inviting the Gravanos?”

    “No of course not.” My father has a way of making every question I ask sound ridiculous. Who knows if he’d invite Gravano, maybe he wants drama. “Regardless, we need to be ready to attend on Friday. We all know our story yes?”

    “Our story is the truth, though?” Mikey is the one who asks this time. He looks around the room but we’re all looking at father.

    “Exactly, Michael.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ciao!   
> So this is the next chapter and i guess i'm just trying to introduce some characters here, and their function in the world. Thanks for reading this so far, the ideas are pouring into my head so I'll try write more shortly. Let me know what you think!   
> XoE


	3. The Photographs That I Gave You

**February 1997, New York**

 

I hate weddings. Always have.

    My cousin looks odd in her wedding dress. She’s trying her best to hide her pregnancy weight by just wearing a larger dress. It doesn’t work. Her hair is dark and flowing behind her nicely and she and her new husband look very happy. No one else does.

    My uncle is sitting in the head seat at the wedding table, even though it’s clearly not his wedding, it’s his affair.

    I see the members of the other Families walk in in suits. They’re all men, they never bring their women. Except Alexa, she walks in proudly beside her brothers and father. The last to arrive are the Basso-Ways. My uncle greets them with a nod and they calmly disperse into the crowd, shaking hands and congratulating my cousin, Anna, and her new husband.

    The place looks like a shark tank the amount of sharp white smiles there are and how unsettled the atmosphere is. I wonder for a second how many guns are here. I’m carrying two myself.

    “Franco,” Maria, my other cousin, calls in a high-itched voice. I have a lot of cousins if I’m honest, it’s a catholic curse to breed like rabbits. I sidle over to her. Maria is Uncle Antonio’s daughter. Antonio runs New York.

     “Sì, Maria?”

     “Who’s that young man,” she’s dancing a straw on her tongue. I can smell the alcohol off her really strongly and wonder if I can order they stop refilling whatever’s pink in her glass, it’s only three in the afternoon.

    “That’s the grandson of Emilio Basso. I don’t know his first name, why?”

     “He’s pretty,” she slurs grinning.

     “Not really, look at his hair.”

     “It’s cute. Introduce me.”

     “No. Maria, don’t,” I grab at her elbow as she walks off towards the Basso boy. Before I can catch her my uncle’s associate, Lee, is at my side. I sigh and relinquish Maria to her unfortunate case of beer goggles. I follow Lee into my Uncle’s study. It’s my favourite room in the house. It’s large, warm, and eerily dark. The wallpaper is red like blood, and when you look closely it’s all flowers. The skirting that runs up high on the wall is dark brown. All the furnishings are dark brown and red leather. There’s bookshelves, a chest, a desk, and several leather armchairs. There’s also only one window and the shutters are almost permanently drawn.

    “Frank, come sit beside me, Lee will be asking people in in a moment and I want you to sit with me,” I wander over to his right hand side. One of my other cousins, Franco (not Frank, very distinct difference to everyone but Maria), stands behind me. I crack my knuckles and sit back in the green leather chair. “Lee get the Basso-Way family in here first.”

    Lee, the man of no words, nods and leaves. “The Basso-Ways are the Us of New Jersey. Except they’re smaller obviously. And Don Way is not directly Sicilian. He’s here with his two sons and cousin.”

    I nod. I wonder what is going to happen. Uncle isn’t really one to discuss things, he just expects his people to handle every curveball he throws. I’m pretty sure it’s the Ways that killed the Gravano associate.

     Lee opens the door and the four walk in. “Johnny,” the older one says. The next oldest looking nods and waits outside with Lee. I wonder how many guns _he_ has.

   “Tony,” the oldest smiles and extends his hand to my uncle.

   “Alberto, ben arrivata, these are your sons?”

   “Yes, Michael and Gerard,” he places his hands on his sons’ shoulders.

    “This is my nephew, Frank, and my cousin Franco,” Uncle smiles, “please sit down.”

     They do. The one introduced as Gerard sits opposite me and I’m pretty sure he’s the one Maria was gawking at. I wonder if she got to him before Lee.

    “Now,” Uncle begins, “We seem to have a lot of problems, Alberto. And they all stemmed from your boys and Gravano. Now I’m not pointing a finger at you,” Alberto is visibly tenser, “but I am saying we need to do something, so I want to create a treaty.”

     “Which will entail peace, is it?” Alberto says snidely. I can feel Franco change position at my back. “Be frank with me, what are we aiming for here?”

     Uncle places his hands on the table. “I want to sign a treaty with you, Donati, and Russo."

     “What about the San Romans? I saw them here.”  
     “That’s because they just married my niece, that’s an affinity enough. What do you think?”

     “I’m willing to talk peace,” Alberto is looking calmer now. His sons look pensive. “What is your peace?”

     “No blood lost from us, to each other. We will be like an extended Family over four territories. Also, we help each other if repeats of the Gravano scenario happens.” I notice the Way boy looking at me and try not to return the gaze. I focus in on Alberto’s face. “As for that scenario I know it’s not your fault, I read the article and even dressed up I can see that Gravano shot first. Who was there?”

    “I was,” the son, Gerard, says, “and Johnny.”

    “What were you doing meeting Gravano in a car park?”

     Gerard opens his mouth to reply but Alberto cuts in, “he was sorting out a problem with one of Gravano’s associates who mistreated one of our girls.”

     “I see,” Uncle strokes his stubbly chin, “And he just shot at the boy?” The “boy” looks a year or two older than me. Alberto nods. “Well that’s very rude, served him right, if it wasn’t for the journalist in the area.”  


We have a few moment between when the Ways leave and the Donatis enter. “Why aren’t we sorting out that reporter,” I ask. “Why aren’t we making them?”

    My uncle sighs. Fuck, I hate when he sighs, “There is nothing the media would love more than that, Frank. If we kill him then they can further criminalise us, and Italians in general. Now you can go back in to the party if you’d like, and keep an eye on the Ways for me.”

     This is Uncle inadvertently telling me to fuck off. So I do.

     It’s so crowded in here and the smell of booze and smoke hangs low in the air. I spot the two way brothers standing awkwardly together by the edge, one of them, Gerard, is trying to light a cigarette. Their father is off rubbing elbows with Don Roman and Johnny is skulking around the edges staring people down. “Can I get you boys a drink?” I ask, taking a lighter out of mu breast pocket and handing it to Gerard.

     They look shocked. “We’re okay,” Gerard says after an uncomfortable length of time, “No thank you.” He lights his cigarette, takes a long drag, and hands me back my lighter.

     I take out a cigarette of my own. “Franco!” Fuck. I almost burn myself in fright. “Who are these _fine_ young men?” Maria steadies herself using my shoulder. She’s wearing no shoes and her glass is full again. She begins sucking slowly from the straw.

     “These are Don Way’s sons,” I say. “Gerard and Michael.”

     Gerard offers her his free hand to shake but she just giggles like a woman possessed and twists around from side to side. I notice past her that Alberto Way has stopped talking to Don Roman and is staring at this awkward exchange. I try to step away, ready to leave my drunk cousin with anyone that isn’t me, but she grabs my shoulder feigning a loss of balance.

     “So why haven’t I seen you before Gerard, your about my age right?” Maria smiles. Michael looks at the far wall, uncomfortably. I wonder if he’s used to this.

     “We’re from New Jersey,” he explains. His accent almost explains it for him, hardly any Italian in it. “Are you related to Frank?”

     “Franco?” Maria slurs, “He’s my _little_ cousin.” She makes a grab at my cheek but I block her hand, knocking ash on her arm. She put way too much emphasis on little. I’m not that small.

     Well.

     She’s not too tall herself.

    “And Anna is also my cousin,” she says, not fazed by my knocking her hand down pretty hard. I think she’s trying to hint how she’s the Don’s daughter.

    “Are you Don Antonio’s daughter?” Gerard asks, quite surprised. Jackpot. She nods. “I didn’t realise he had children.”

    “Only me,” she smiles. “But Franco is his baby,” she goes to try squeeze my cheeks again but reconsiders. “So tell me all about New Jersey, I’ve only been like twice.”

 

**February 1997, New Jersey.**

 

“Brendon?” Ryan calls. I can hear him through every wall in the suite. He's like a human megaphone. “Brendon, seriously man.”

    I push open the bathroom door and scoot into the hall as quietly as I can. I have three towels wrapped around me and one on my head even though I’ve got incredibly short hair now. I hop into the kitchen, I wonder what’s in the fridge.

      “Brendon?” I can hear him in the hall now. I aggressively hop towards the winding staircase but he’s in the kitchen before I can reach it. “What the actual- Brendon stop you’re going to break your neck,” I can feel him approaching me as I try to hop up the steps. “You can run from me but you can’t run from the press conference, come on.” He grabs my arm in only kind of rough way.

    “Let’s go get you suited up,” he says. I stumble and almost fall over the long towel around my legs. Ryan steadies me and grins. He takes the towel off and we climb the rest of the steps with my downstairs completely exposed to the chilly February evening temperature.

    I get dressed and do my hair smartly as Ryan calls the driver. We, I, have a really short press conference this evening with some members of the local press. I have mentally prepared most of my answers, as usual, and I can pretty much expect what they will say. Anything and everything about the mafia.

    Ryan is sitting on his phone across my kitchen counter from me. I clear my throat but he doesn’t look up. I try again. Nothing. I start wiggling my eyebrows and leaning in towards him until I’m centimetres from his face. “Stop that, come on. You’re about to go to a press conference, have some composure.”

     “I’ll be as serious as Bill Clinton himself I swear.”

     He sighs. My campaign seems to be tiring him out, and aging him. “You can’t show how _young_ you are. You have to act like you’re forty. Fifty, even.”

     I nod. I want to sigh at him but he’ll just call me a drama queen, again. It’s funny, he used to be the overly dramatic one, not me. I found him composing burlesques for fuck sake.

    The car comes and we practice questions and answers in the back as Jon drives us straight to the hotel where it’s going on. We drive past the Ways house in some sort of short cut. I turn my face down and away from the windows, even though they’re tinted. I don’t want to be seen around here after breaking off my relationship with them. Jon is our new driver since Brent fucked off somewhere else. I miss Brent but Jon is nice too.

    We pull up outside the venue.

    “Mr. Urie!” people shout, followed by random questions and statements. Flashes go off and body guards hold up their arms and I walk as calmly as possible through the foyer of the hotel. “Please hold all questions for Mr. Urie until the conference, thank you!” Ryan shouts at them. His fly is down, I wonder when it’s appropriate to point that out.

    We take our seats in the big room and Ryan pours us water. “Psst,” I whisper “There is cheese on your chin.”

     “What?”

     “Your zipper is south bound.”

     “Oh, thanks,” he doesn’t even look embarrassed.

     The reporters begin flooding in. I clear my throat as Ryan makes my introductory announcements. Everyone there is probably ready to tear me apart. I don’t know why they all hate me, I’m not actually proposing anything bad.

     “Mr Urie! Mr. Urie!” they shout as hands and voice recorders fly into the air. Flashes go off from ever part of the room as everyone scrambles for my attention. I flash my brightest smile as Ryan accepts a question. “Mr. Urie, have you seen the recent outbreak of mafia violence in the news, and what do you plan to do about it?”

     “I have read the recent article, yes. However I don’t believe this is a recent outbreak of mob violence, only a recent surfacing of it. I plan to tackle it head on and will be speaking with all the police departments, personally.”  
     “Mr Urie! Mr Urie!”

     “Mr Urie, are you aware of the large numbers of lives lost due to gang violence in New Jersey in the past five years?”

     “Can you comment on any policies you’d put in place to fight organised crime like this”

     “How do you think the mafia organisations escaped our notice until now?”

     Etc., etc.

     “Mr. Saporta recently claimed that you have been in contact with one of these families, can you comment on this?”

     Well that was unexpected. How the fuck did Gabe find out that, he must be talking to the Ways too. I can’t afford to miss a beat here. “I was not aware of this rumour, fear this is a vain attempt of Mr Saporta to sabotage my campaign by spreading lies in relation to recent events.”

     “Mr. Urie! Mr. Urie!”

     “Mr. Urie will take no more questions this evening, thank you,” Ryan is leaning across me into the microphone. Everyone shouts and more photographs are taken as Ryan and I are ushered out of the room and through foyer. Outside Jon is waiting with the car, reading Rolling Stone Magazine. We jump in the back.

     “Ryan, get me Trohman on the phone as soon as we get home,” I groan. “We need to sort out the whole Saporta shit right now.”

     Ryan nods but we don’t say any more than that. I know what we’re both thinking but we hold our peace. It’s not that we can’t trust Jon.

     Well no, actually, that’s exactly what it is. We just don’t know him yet. Anyone with a cheque book could have bugged the car.

     At home Ryan phones up my lawyer, Joe Trohman, as I change out of my suit and hang it ready to be dry cleaned. Spencer would be here to bring it to the drycleaners in the morning, nothing makes me sweat as much as press conferences. Well, maybe Ryan.

    “Trohman will be here in the afternoon,” Ryan says upon entering the room. “How could Saporta have found that out, do you think he had people follow us? Do you think it’s Jon?”

     “No and no. My first thought was that he’s with the Ways also. Or with an associate of theirs.”

     Ryan looks pensive. I smile at him, “Don’t worry, no one’s going to believe that to be any more than petty candidate squabbling. You don’t have to look so scared.” I walk over to him. “You’re wearing a woman’s blouse again,” I grin, running my hands along his shoulders. Fucking pink flowers, he looks like he’s dressed in gaudy old woman curtains.

    “Shit,” he laughs, “I thought this was the one with the pink stripes. Do you think they can see it in the press photographs?”

    “Probably,” I laugh, running my hands across his shoulders and down to the buttons, I undo the top one.

    “No, not tonight, I can’t stay.”

    “What, why not?”

     He’s silent for a moment, probably trying to come up with a decent reason. I bet he can’t, he never can and he always tries.

    “Okay,” he grins, “I can’t think of a good enough reason right now.” He begins to unbutton the bottom of his own shirt as I continue from the top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hi,  
> So this took weirdly long to write considering the amount of concentrated effort gone in to this one chapter. I hope this fic doesn't get too difficult to follow with different POVs every now and again, but there are several story lines that will be running parallel. Thank you for reading this far, those who have. Please lemme know what you think,  
> XoE


	4. Chapter 4

**February 1997, New Jersey**

 

The grains in the bottom of my cup are in the shape of a cross. I wonder what that means. Probably that I need more coffee. Mikey is one step ahead of me and puts the cup down beside my arm. I’m sitting in the corner of the café and I swear to god if my head doesn’t stop pounding I’m going to cut it off.

    I didn’t even drink much at the wedding. I had like three glasses of champagne. I’d think that Constantini girl put something in my drink if I thought she was capable of forming the thoughts, “I want to get this guy drunk.”

    Mikey sits down opposite me with his own coffee. “You shouldn’t have done those shots last night,” he sighs. He sighs so loudly.

     “What shots?”

     “Back home with Marc, Luca, and Ricc.” Oh yea, I forgot about that, Marc was celebrating breaking up with his girlfriend. That explains a lot. Mikey sighs again. “That Maria girl was really annoying last night, wasn’t she?”

     I go to nod but it hurts, “Yeah,” I manage instead. “She wouldn’t fuck off.”

    “I think she likes you.”      

    “I wonder what gave it away,” I take out my pack of cigarettes, there’s two left. I light one and sip away at my coffee. “That must have been really awkward for you last night, sorry.”

     “It’s alright. I wasn’t exactly jealous of your position either.”

     “Touché.” I sit there smoking for a while. Mikey just drinks his coffee in our comfortable silence.

     When I finish my coffee I head off in search of another pack of cigarettes. It’s stopped snowing as heavily but there’s still layers and layers packed onto the concrete and tarmac and I’m constantly afraid I’m going to slip out on to the road. A gust of wind blows up from behind, pushing me forward. I stumble on and almost pass the shop, such was the violence of the air.

    Inside I shake off some of the snow and tap off what’s encrusted on my boots onto the really tatty “Welcome” matt. I poke around in my pocket for money as I approach the counter. “A pack of Marlborough, please,” I say, still searching for coins.

    “Do you have ID?” the man asks stiffly from behind the counter. I can hear the door shut behind me.

     “Yes, one sec,” I root around in my big coat pocket. “Aha, here.”

     He checks it nervously and then gets me the cigarettes. “Hi Gerard,” a familiar voice says from just behind me.

     I turn around, “Oh, hi Pete, haven’t seen you in a while.”

    “Yeah, it’s been too long. How’ve you been?”

    “Pretty okay, you?”

    “Yeah, I’m okay. I think I’m headed up to yours now, want a lift?” Pete smiles. I don’t really want to return to my area in a cop car my dad might think I’ve done something wrong and forgot to tell them the safe house address in downtown as opposed to the house.

     Pete is a Family friend though, he was in school with my cousins Luca and Marc and is only two years or so older than me. He’s a pretty good guy, quite high ranking as an officer and sitting prettily in our payroll too.

    I peer out the glass door and see only a black Chevy. “Yea, sure,” I say. “Will we get Mikey too?”

    “Definitely.”

    Pete pulls up outside the café and beeps the horn three times very loudly. It’s not even a parking space and I’m about to warn him for cops when I remember. I roll down the window and beacon Mikey in. He sighs, leaving his apron on a hook and running out the door and in to the backseat.

    Pete and Mikey burst in to cheerful, normal conversation as I smoke out the moving window. Pete blares some music and I have to take a moment to appreciate how mismatched a crew this is. A cop and two mob boss’ sons, blaring Metallica and speeding through red lights.

 

At home Mikey just goes into his room to study and I sit in on the meeting between Pete and my father. I lean against a side table at the edge of the room and listen, there’s never anything for me to say.

    “So we need to know what the police have on the Gravano case,” my father begins. He’s about to continue but Pete cuts him off.

    “I knew you would so I photocopied you a file. It’s not even top secret, or secret at all. Here,” he slides across a stack of about six pages messily stapled together. “Basically, it says nothing but Gravano was killed. No eye witnesses, just that journalist who heard it. The family doesn’t know who would do it. The motive is gang violence.”

    “Gang violence,” my father spits, flipping through the pages, “ _Violenza di gruppo_ ,” he says again. “Well I guess gang violence is a better name for it than mafia violence.”

     “To be honest, Mr. Way, in the eye of the police it’s all just organised crime.”

     My father looks intensely unhappy with this. It’s something he managed to inherit from my grand-father, somehow. He can’t stand being connected with normal criminality. Anything illegal he does he does for his Family and for his friends. He grants favours and delivers punishments. All he ever does is what helps people.

    Well, it doesn’t really help the people who go Gravano’s way.

    “This is good Pete thank you. Also, we need to know what the police are planning to do about us.”

    “Nothing.”

    “Nothing?”

    “No one has told us to do anything, so we’re not planning to.”

    “What about this,” my father pushes a page from the newspaper towards Pete. It’s an article written about Brendon Urie, the man running for senator who recently cut off communication with us.

    “Well,” Pete says, skimming over it, “he hasn’t arrived yet. And he probably won’t, he’s just playing the media. The _mafia scandal_ is what’s on everyone’s minds. Something else big will come up and everyone will be paying attention to that. That journalist though,” Pete leans back against his chair, “the one who heard Gravano and wrote this article about Urie, he’s been in a few times. He wants to do investigative journalism and he’s been assigned to me.”

    “Oh?”

    “I’ll make sure he finds out nothing, at all.”

    “Okay,” My father says. It’s clearly not okay to him, he doesn’t want Pete’s interference as the only thing between this journalist and us.

      “I guess, that’s it. Keep an eye on Urie, and on Saporta at that. I want to know what they want to know,” my father says, filing the Gravano file in his desk drawer.

     “Well if that’s so, Urie’s lawyer was in. He wanted files on Saporta’s relations to anyone of Italian decent.”

     “And?”

     “Well, nothing. If Saporta is on the payroll of anyone it’s hardly on our records.”

 

We’re all sitting in the sitting room that night watching Friends when the phone rings in the hall. No one moves. “Oh for fuck sake I’ll get it,” Marc sighs, pulling himself upwards. The living room is pretty crowded and even at seventeen years old Mikey is made sit on the floor. Grandpa has his chair, my parents have their’s. Marc, Luca, and I share a small couch and my two aunts share the other. I’d be on the floor too if Ricc hadn’t recently moved into the safe house with his girlfriend.

    “Gee!” Marc yells, “It’s for you.”

    I’d be pretty pissed off with the amount of shocked faces were I not completely shocked myself. I don’t have friends, not outside the Family. I had, like, one and then it turned out he inherited the job of running a drug cartel. He’s now running around Mexico with some drug lords.

    I wonder what it would be like to have a friend my age that was just out of college and looking for a job in finance or something.

    I walk out into the hall. Marc holds out the phone to me and mouths the word _it’s a girl._ Well that just makes things weirder. I take the phone off Marc and he raises his eyebrows at me and mock thrusts into me before returning to the sitting room. “Um hello, it’s Gerard.”

    “Hey Gerard,” the voice says on the other end. It hesitates for a second before saying, “How’re you?”

    “I’m good, thanks. Sorry, who am I speaking to?”

    “Oh, sorry, right, yes.” She pauses a moment as if thinking of the answer, “I’m Maria. From the wedding?”

    “Oh, Ms Constantini!” I say quite loudly. The TV turns off in the next room. “I’m very sorry you sound so different… over phone.” She sounds sober. How did she get the house number, I thought she would only have access the number of my father in the office?

     “Yes, haha, and sober.” There’s an awkward silence. Then, “So I was thinking about what you were saying about New Jersey, and your brother’s coffee shop.”

     I see my father and Mikey appear in the doorway of the living room. Papa leans against the door frame, scowling. Mikey slowly creeps past me and up the stairs. “Uh, yeah? What about them,” I say making swatting motions at Mikey. He’s headed for the landing phone.

    “Well just that the café sounds really lovely and chilled. My usual café has been shut down.” _Wait is she asking to come to the café._ “It’s pretty bunk. New York in general is.”

    “Oh yea?” I hear Mikey run over to the top of the stairs. _Ask her to come to mine,_ he mouths. “Well, you’d be very welcome in my, my brother’s, café.”

    “Do you go there often?”

    “Yes.”

    “Is the coffee good?”

    “Yes.” I catch my father glaring more than normal. “It’s strong, if you like it strong. It can be weaker if you’d like.”

    “I like that kind of choice. But I prefer strong, and sweet. Do you think that need will be catered for?”

    “Um.” Upstairs I hear Mikey throwing himself to the floor and covering his mouth trying to stifle laughter. Lucca and Marc are standing behind my father now, eyebrows raised. “I’m sure you can have whatever you want,” I say as Marc and Luca sneak past me up the stairs too.

    “That sounds lovely,” she says softly, “I guess I might see you there tomorrow then, if you’re there around eleven thirty?”

    “I probably will be.”

    “Great, see you Gerard.”

    “Goodbye Maria…”

    I hang up. Mikey bursts out laughing upstairs. “I can’t believe we just missed it,” Marc wails. Lucca is laughing too. Mikey dramatically throws himself towards the stairs. He’s laughing so hard he has to take off his glasses to wipe his eyes. I frown. I can’t tell If they’re laughing at me, Maria, or our combined awkwardness.

    My father beacons me in to his study as the TV turns back on in the next room, Phoebe is singing. Mikey is quoting Maria to the other two as they descend the stairs.

    In his study my father takes his seat and offers me the one opposite him. It’s the same format as when he has guests from outside the family. “So,” he begins, “you are in contact with the Constantini girl?”

    “Not on purpose,” I say. “I spoke to her at the wedding when she was very drunk. I assumed she was only interested in me because of that.”

    “But she’s still interested in you. Why?”

    Ouch. “I don’t know, maybe it’s my handsome face and stunning personality.”

    “Gerard.”

    “Okay, sorry. I don’t know.”

    “Buy her coffee tomorrow.”

    “Why?”

    “Just do it.”

    “I don’t like her like that, I don’t really like her in general.”

    “You don’t know her, you might like her. Buy her coffee tomorrow, I’ll give you the money if you really want. It’s important we have a good relationship with the Constantinis now. We can’t afford to piss them off by you being unpleasant to their only child.”

    “Excuse you, I’m never anything but charm and delight.”

    “Gerard.”

    “Sorry. I’ll buy her coffee tomorrow, but I won’t enjoy it,” I get up to leave.

    “Try be nice, Gerard. And friendly if you can at all manage.”

    “Fine, fine. I’m going to my room, night.”

    “Goodnight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Salutations  
> It's currently technically my birthday. So i spent the transition across midnight writing this weird ass story for y'all. A good way to start this year i think. I'm sorry that the ages are so fucked up, it was the only way to get the characters to be what i wanted, you know?  
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading this, it means a lot, and pretty please lemme know what you think,  
> XoE

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all.  
> I'm back to writing! Which means i will begin this fic as well as complete my other one. I'm sorry about the absence if you read my stuff before and if not, Hello my name is Ella and i write Gay literature for your pleasure!  
> This fic is going to be a big one so bare with me if you like the sound of it. Please let me know if you'd like me to carry it on, thank you for reading it thus far!  
> XoE


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